Star Saver is an awesome action, adventure game (metroidvania style) with a really cool twist. You play as a Squidly, a Space Squid, hauling around Squishy, The Prince of the Galaxy, on a magic chain in search of the stars that are mysteriously disappearing from the sky. Luckily, Prince Squishy can eat his way though almost anything! Star Saver is a hilarious adventure spanning the galaxy, with over 10 hours of gameplay.

It’s FREE to download for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch and provides a whopping 1/3 of the game for free before the need to unlock the full version.

For a one of a kind retro Mac game, look no further than Adventures of El Ballo. It mixes some wacky adult humor with some pretty solid platform gameplay. The player travels through stages and battles bosses at the end of each area. Along the way, they collect new weapons to help in the adventure.

The game’s standard mode has the adult-ish content, but it also offers a family-friendly mode that cleans things up. However, at this point in time, the game’s video scenes are not even playable. As a matter of fact, the movie playback option needs to be disabled in the game’s settings in order to play the game due to a QuickTime movie playing issue. (The video movie technology used in the game was created in Flash, which is no longer supported in versions of QuickTime above 6.5.2.) Definitely worth getting as retro Mac games are quite rare!

The first one I played was Dirk Dashing: Secret Agent. Dirk Dashing has a nice old-school game play approach. Explore, collect, fend off enemies and make your way to the end. The game is for those young or young at heart. Instead of the secret agent wielding a gun, he is only armed with sleeping gas grenades and must dispatch his enemies using non violent methods. It’s rare to find non violent games like this. I suggest giving it a go.

The player must fend off asteroids from hitting earth, deflect alien attacks, rescue stranded ships, and many more objectives as the player progresses. The game uses a nice mix of cartoon 2D, semi realistic visuals, and great soundtrack to recreate a lively and fun environment. The controls are simple to pickup and go. Once again, another recommendation to download and have some fun with.

Now here’s an interesting homebrew retro game that’s been around the block. The game is called Qwak. It’s been on many platforms: BBC, Amiga, Gameboy Advance, and most recently Windows PC. It’s a fun game that guides the player through a wild assortment of levels. You’ll be collecting fruits, gems, and treasures galore while battling enemies and avoiding traps in the stages. The game also has a two-player mode for joining in on the action. The game has the playful fun of Bubble Bobble, but it’s quite unique in it’s own right.

(Game collectors be advised: Qwak has a limited run Gameboy Advance version. Only 300 copies were made. Get your copy while you still can!)

Now here’s a game company that truly embodies the retro gaming genre: Puppy Games. Their games: Titan Attacks!, Ultratron, and Droid Assault are highly retooled classics with stunning retro 2D visual design and significantly expanded gameplay. To say that their games are addictive, doesn’t do the company justice. These games are highly addictive!

Retro game development is in this company’s veins. Don’t think of passing these gems up. Most of their games are playable for Mac, Windows and Linux.

I also plan on doing a full Q&A developer profile on this company soon. Keep an eye open for it.

If you’re in a mood for an old-school point and click adventure (similar to the Kings Quest series), The Tales of Bingwood (developed by BugFactory Games) definitely fits the bill. It meshes retro pixel art, captivating music, point and click adventuring, challenging puzzles, and well performed voice acting into one soothing and fun experience.

Definitely check out the demo and see for yourself. The Tales of Bingwood is Windows exclusive.

(Mac users: the demo doesn’t run that well in Parallels (v3). It might run good in Parallels v4, but I wouldn’t know since I don’t have it. I ran the game perfectly in Boot Camp though.)

If you haven’t seen or played Cortex Command (developed by Data Realms), you definitely need to do yourself a favor and give it a go. Just look at the animation on the right to get a sense of what you’re in for… awesome physics-based 2d sprite animation/destruction.

This retro 2d game is strategy/action-orientated. (Think Team 17 Worms, but real-time.) The developer’s site does note that the game is still under development, but early purchasers can get it at a lower than final retail price.

Zombie Holiday Prologue is quite entertaining and definitely embroils the core of what retro 2D games are all about: limited lives!

Seriously though, the artwork, animation and level design are very good in this action platformer. The game is set in a moody and creepy (yet colorful) environment. The scope and range of the game grows as you progress, as well as your arsenal of weaponry.

Zombie Holiday Prologue is enjoyable, challenging, and oh, did I mention, free. This Mac-exclusive game can be downloaded from the developer’s website.

This game was made using Sawblade Software’s Power Game Factory game development application.

After a long wait, that dedicated developer out in Connecticut, USA (Sawblade Software) has released an update to their software (Power Game Factory) for creating retro 2D scrolling action games on the Apple platform! Not only that, but they also released a pixel editing application for artists.

At long last, Sawblade Software is thrilled to announce the availability of Power Game Factory 1.1. With dozens of new features and hundreds of improvements, Power Game Factory was definitely worth the three year wait! Today Sawblade Software is also announcing the release of Bristles, a fun and easy to use painting program.

If you haven’t heard about Mega Man 9 for Wii and Xbox, please come out of your cave and get this game. Through the development process the developers made many passes at this game to instill a historic and true retro feel.

They purposely limited animation and graphics. They also didn’t shy away from making the game difficult even in this new culture of “easy casual gaming.” It’s just as hard (if not harder) when compared to the original Mega Man released for the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) over 20 years ago.

If you retro gaming “old timers” (like myself) still have some hair on your head, expect to lose some playing this great game ;D